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13.7.12

Letter #41: How Bizarre

Dear Man in the Blue Car Playing the OMC Hit How Bizarre on a Monday Morning in my Neighborhood,

I really appreciate your sense of humor at the beginning of the work. There's a chance that you don't have a solid sense of humor and that "How Bizarre" is one of my all-time favorite songs, or perhaps you missed the boat in 1996 and just wanted to catch up with popular culture. All of these are serious possibilities. Plus, I'm pretty sure you were wearing a Hawaiian shirt. Or at least some type of golf polo with embroidery all over it. Perhaps tiny crocodiles? or red lobsters?

No matter what your own reasoning was though, you made my day. To hear such a song belting itself from a car that's pulling out of a garage, well before 9 am in 2012. Was just, well...it was bizarre.

And for a moment I wanted you to stop and somehow I wanted us to talk. I could tell you about how that song reminds me of a summer in High School. Walking the shore of Hilton Head, SC with my best friend at the time who in two short years I wouldn't talk to anymore. How that song was a soundtrack of a time when I owned approximately 6 bikinis and still thought myself as fat. I wanted to share this with you and ask why you needed to play it so early in the morning. What memory was attached for you. I wanted to talk to ask your opinion on why this song became such a summer hit. Did you know anything about the band and how they formed. Did you watch the video recently and find yourself thinking about the singers' horrible teeth? And of course, we were probably both wondering where are they now.

And yes, I could have taken to the Internet to find the answers to these questions. But sometimes, knowing just isn't worth it. If I knew the OMC back story, caught up on their lives today, would that make the goofy song any better? Probably not. In fact, probably worse.

Instead, I smiled to myself. Uttered "Have a nice day to you" in a whispered breath. And went along to start my day. The song was an earworm then but I kind of liked it that way. And you? Well, you could have turned out to be very bizarre. Or my very next boyfriend. But again, knowing those answers would have ruined the images too, right?

So, man playing OMC's How Bizarre on a Monday morning, thank you.

And for the rest of you, the video. Which is clearly a fine work of mid-90s art.